Your Neighbor Is Real

Hey there, friend. Thanks for tuning into this very first episode of season two here at The BETWEEN Podcast.

I’m thrilled you’re here.

Hey… if you’re new around here, I’d strongly recommend you go back and listen to some of the episodes we recorded in season one.

Of course you don’t have to… this isn’t a serial crime solving podcast or anything like that… truthfully I’m just incredibly proud of the sacred conversations we share in season one — sacred conversations about… sacred conversations.

We had such incredible guests… authors, creators, innovators, and a wide array of people who dove in deeply with me to talk about the intersection of faith and human connection.

Expect more of that same thing in this upcoming season… we might not be doing the same weekly episode releases… every single week was a lot … but we’re going to have wonderful, holy, sacred conversations with some cool people this season.

So… again… if you’re new around here… BETWEEN is all about empowering you to create more moments of sacred conversation in your life. We believe deeply that our deeply divided and painfully lonely world will only actually be healed one sacred encounter… one holy conversation at a time.

And listen… no matter what you believe or even if you believe… you’re welcome here and we want to learn from your perspective. Curiosity and uncertainty is our starting point. We don’t have a doctrine to drill into you or a set of theological requirements for you to meet… you’re welcome here.

OK… we don’t have a guest today. So this will be a short little mini episode…. But I want to talk about something important.

Do not get sucked into the vortex.

Don’t be bamboozled by the rage bait.

Don’t be brought down to the level of those who are throwing mud at each other.

Yes, my friend. We are in strange times.

And yes, my friend. It is important that we stand up for what’s right. It’s important that we live out all the things our spiritual teachings and our deepest beliefs have asked us to do.

But don’t get sucked into the vortex. Don’t be siphoned down into the mud pit. The mud pit is not where real life is. The mud pit is not where you will make the impact you want to make. You’ll just end up feeling dirty and tired and you’ll just end up looking like the people you’re throwing mud at.

Social media… and maybe most media… wants you to be angry. Wants you to shout and yell about politics and oligarchs and whatever the issue of the day is…

Meanwhile, your neighbor is lonely. Your neighbor is hungry. Your neighbor is struggling with a broken family relationship or they’re terrified they’re not going to be able to make their rent payment or they’re trying to not disappoint their kids or they’re praying the addiction doesn’t take over their life again.

Your neighbor is real.

I’m going to say that again… the rage bait mud pit… the anger machine that the world is trying to draw you into… that’s make believe. That’s a distraction.

Your neighbor is real.

Your neighbor is real.

If I had one prayer for our world right now it’s that we’d turn our attention from our screens and the shouting and the anger machines… and we’d turn to our neighbors remembering that we can find God there.

Do you know how many immigrants live near you? How many trans folks? How many people who have had an abortion? How many republicans? How many democrats?

Probably not. Neither do I. Most of us are so bad at our up-close and personal world but we are more than willing to make big, broad, sweeping claims about the issues at large.

I sometimes think BETWEEN is a ministry against abstraction. I sometimes wonder if what God was really doing in those stories about Jesus — when God showed up in the dust and pain of a human life — was reminding us to get our head out of the clouds… get our eyes off of abstract things and focus in on the reality of the humans in our up close and personal world.

Jesus didn’t arrive as a newspaper publicist. Jesus didn’t arrive as a political operative. Jesus didn’t arrive as a talking head on a 24 hour news channel. The stories of Jesus are stories of personal conversations and interactions. The stories of Jesus are stories of one-on-one healing and crying together and praying together and small groups of thoughtful committed citizens helping each other and healing each other in the face of an oppressive abstract empire.

Your neighbor is real.

Maybe the best way for us to show up in a tumultuous political moment in our world is to — at scale, by the millions, all at once — just focus our attention on the neighbors right in front of us.

Your neighbor is real.

I saw this quote the other day on the internet… it’s from a book I read years and year ago and I think I need to pick it up again. It’s from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s (Letters and Papers from Prison):

“We are not simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

Maybe instead of raging in the comments section of whatever internet site we’re on… or maybe instead of getting mad at the guy in the big truck with the flags flying on the back that just passed us on the highway… maybe we’re supposed to recognize the machine we’re trapped inside. And maybe we’re supposed to drive a spoke into the wheel.

Here’s what I think that means.

Lean further into each other. Lean further into our neighbors and enemies and family members and co-workers and strangers on the street.

The biggest and most effective spoke we can drive into the wheel of the societal rage machine is one forged from love and curiosity and understanding and empathy.

Even the worst people in history were just people. And even the worst people doing the worst things to the most innocent among us today are just people. They are our neighbors… they are real… and they are lonely and disconnected from the warm embrace of God.

One time years and years ago I found myself really disheartened by a fundamentalist evangelical Christian religious experience I found myself as an observer of. I wasn’t being hurt by it, but I could see others who were being manipulated and trapped by a machine they didn’t know they were inside.

I was feeling deeply disheartened by what I saw. And then I had the most obvious epiphany. It was like one of those spiritual ah ha moments that sounded more like “duh.”

I realized I could evangelize too.

I could be an evangelist for togetherness. I could be an evangelist for the sacredness of human connection. I could be an evangelist for curiosity and radical acceptance. I could be an evangelist for equity and justice. I could be an evangelist for a love-filled, fear-free faith and life. I could be an evangelist for the mystery and wonder of all love-filled faith traditions. I could be an evangelist for peace.

And maybe right now… I’m trying to be an evangelist for all of us to get up close to one another. I’m trying to be an evangelist for a world in which we don’t see each other as abstractions… but we get up close and personal and inhale deeply the humanity of each person we encounter.

“Blessed are the peacemakers” Jesus preached from the mountainside. “For they will be called children of God.”

Peacemaking in our time, I believe, starts and ends with recognizing the sacredness of our moments of human connection.

Peacemakers understand that the space between ourselves and the next person we encounter is the sacred upon which we can commune with God and find our way out of the messes we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Blessed are the peacemakers. I believe that’s what BETWEEN is all about. Empowering and supporting peacemakers to go out into their lives and rebuild the culture we crave one sacred conversation at a time.

This season on our podcast, I hope you hear examples of that. I hope you hear curiosity and authenticity and vulnerability. I hope you sense the importance of each conversation — not just the ones you hear but especially the ones you have in your own life.

Thanks for listening and be sure to check out all the stuff we’re producing at BETWEEN.

Hey, a big thing we’re trying to do is get folks to gather together and discuss BETWEEN messages. We call these BETWEEN Groups and I’d love it if you — yes you — would try to organize one. Let me know if you do and I’ll send you a free gift.

Go to BETWEEN.church and check out our weekly 5(ish)-minute sermons, our Substack, our emails, our social media… we have a new personal text-based ministry… we’ve got events. We’ve got a lot going on at BETWEEN and I’m just so thrilled to have you here as BETWEENER.

OK. That does it for this episode. My favorite church is the space BETWEEN people. Now go, with God’s love. And create the church BETWEEN.